1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a compact chemical reactor and a chemical reaction system.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a technical field of chemical reactions, a chemical reactor has been known which produces a desired fluid material by a chemical reaction (catalytic reaction) of a fluidized mixture in the presence of a catalyst provided in a flow path. Some of such chemical reactors have a micro flow path formed in a substrate of silicon or the like by use of a micro fabrication technique accumulated by a semiconductor production technique of semiconductor integrated circuits or the like.
FIG. 22 is a transmitted plan view of one example of such a compact chemical reactor, and FIG. 23 is a sectional view along the line XXIII—XXIII of FIG. 22. This compact chemical reactor comprises a compact substrate 1. A flow path 2 made up of a micro meandering groove is formed in one surface of the substrate 1. A catalyst layer 3 is provided on an internal wall surface of the groove.
An opposite substrate 4 is joined onto the one surface of the substrate 1. An inflow port 5 and an outflow port 6 penetrating in a thickness direction of the opposite substrate 4 are formed at two predetermined positions of the opposite substrate 4 corresponding to both ends of the flow path 2. A heater 7 which meanders correspondingly to the flow path 2 is provided on the opposite surface of the substrate 1. The heater 7 supplies predetermined heat energy to the catalyst layer 3 in the flow path 2 for a chemical reaction, when predetermined heat is needed for the chemical reaction (catalytic reaction) in the compact chemical reactor.
In the conventional compact chemical reactor described above, the heater 7 is provided on a side of the opposite surface of the substrate 1 in operation. The heat of the heater 7 propagates to part in the substrate 1 where the flow path 2 is not provided before sufficiently propagating into the flow path 2, thus posing problems of a great deal of heat energy loss, inefficiency of energy use, and time taken for a desired chemical reaction to be caused.
An advantage of this invention is to provide a compact chemical reactor and a chemical reaction system capable of reducing a loss of heat energy of the heater, enhancing the efficiency of energy use, and rapidly promoting a reaction.